DARK WEB MONITORING: ESSENTIAL SAFEGUARD OR WASTED SPEND?

Megan Poljacik • June 26, 2025

With growing concerns about data breaches and stolen credentials, many businesses feel pressured to invest in services that claim to scan the dark web for leaked information. But before committing resources, it's worth asking whether these tools actually provide meaningful information or if they are an unproductive expenditure.


The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that you can’t reach with standard browsers or search engines. It operates using a system called Tor, which stands for The Onion Router. Tor keeps users anonymous by sending their internet traffic through several different servers around the world, encrypting the data each time. This makes it extremely difficult to trace who someone is or where they’re connecting from. Unlike regular websites that end in .com or .org, dark web sites usually end in .onion and require the Tor browser to access them. While some people use the dark web for legitimate reasons like protecting their privacy or avoiding censorship, it’s mostly associated with hosting illegal activities like online black markets, where stolen corporate data is sold. 

Dark web monitoring tools are often marketed as essential, but in reality, they offer limited value. Once your personal data has been exposed on the dark web, the damage is already done. Rather than relying on these reactive tools, a proactive approach is far more effective. Implementing 2 factor authentication and regularly updating your passwords and using strong, unique credentials for each account significantly reduces the risk of data breaches. In most cases, consistently practicing good password hygiene makes dark web monitoring unnecessary.


Investing in tools that directly enhance your organization’s cybersecurity—such as advanced threat detection, endpoint protection, employee training, and incident response—offers a far greater return than spending on dark web monitoring services. While monitoring may provide occasional alerts, focusing resources on proactive, preventative measures is a smarter and more impactful strategy for keeping your business secure in today’s evolving threat landscape.




Uncomplicate IT News Blog

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE CLOUD GOES DOWN?

By Megan Poljacik & Bryan Doherty • November 24, 2025
The internet has had a series of bad days over the last few months. In October, Microsoft 365 briefly went sideways in North America after a network misconfiguration disrupted access to Teams and Exchange Online before service recovered the same day. A few weeks later, Microsoft Azure suffered an outage after a faulty configuration change was pushed to Azure Front Door Configuration, affecting Microsoft 365, Xbox, and other services worldwide. Around the same time Amazon crashed, stating that an AWS disruption stemmed from a DNS automation bug associated with DynamoDB. This is an automated system that directs internet traffic that made a timing mistake, and that small glitch quickly snowballed and knocked parts of the service offline. Most recently, Cloudflare, a service many websites use to load faster and block bad traffic, went down, leaving millions unable to access sites and services. It’s no surprise that many business owners are now asking whether the cloud is still a safe choice for their business. Short answer: yes. For most small and mid-size companies, the cloud is still the safest, most cost-effective place to run everyday tools. It delivers enterprise-grade security, constant patching, and built-in resilience that would be expensive to match on your own. But “safe” doesn’t mean “never fail.”

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IMPACTFUL VIRUSES IN HISTORY: STUXNET

By Megan Poljacik • July 31, 2025
In the early 2000s, tensions in the middle east were on the rise. Iran’s government had begun expanding its uranium enrichment capabilities, insisting it was for nuclear energy purposes. However many countries around the globe feared it was a coverup for a nuclear weapons program. Despite pressure from United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran continued to enrich uranium. Frustrations reached a fever pitch and it appeared a conflict was imminent, until a mysterious solution came from a completely unexpected source: the Stuxnet Computer Worm.